An academic knits, crochets and spins.... a whole lot.

February 03, 2011

The Winter of the Toothache

I fear that some of my readers (however few of you there are out there) may have thought that I had stopped blogging. Not so-- it has just been a crazy month. I had some work done on a tooth and there were disastrous side-affects, so I have spent the last three weeks in a haze of pain. Before that, the new semester started and that is an insanely busy time for those of us in academia, so I feel like I have been buried under work and a toothache. Unpleasant, you know?

I have done a little bit of knitting in the last month. I made these fingerless mitts from sock yarn I had sitting around (Anni's sock yarn, I think). The pattern is in Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders. And it is the "Woven" Fingerless Gloves. Perfect for a Texas winter, which lasts all of one month, but actually I finished them in time for a cold snap that kept us below freezing with windchills of about 10 F. Yes, that would be 10 F in South Texas. Really, really cold by our standards.

Fingerless mitts rock not only for places that tend towards warm, but also for driving the car, walking the dog and doing other tasks when it is really, really cold. wearing these, I can still grip the steering wheel easily and keep my hands warm in a very cold car (at least until the heater gets going.)

As to what I am knitting right now, well it is a purple hippo. (No joke) A toy for another friend who is having a baby. There isn't much to see as all the pieces are knitted flat and then seamed, but I am working away on the hippo. It is a lot of easy knitting at the moment

As to my cross-stitch, I have started a new project called "The Village of Hawk Run Hollow." It has 12 panels and I was hoping to get one done a month this year but I am already behind. I don't even have half of one done.

Way behind, eh? The fabric cover over the q-snaps was made for me by my friend L. When you are working on a big project (as this one is) a lot of it hangs out from the edges of the Q-snap frames if you prefer to work with a smaller frame like I do (that is an 11 x 11). So the beauty of the Q-snap cover is that you can tuck all the excess fabric into the fabric cover to keep it from getting dirty and snagged. At first I didn't really get the idea behind a Q-snap cover but now I wouldn't work without one, it makes life easier.

Finally, I didn't need to do this, but I did. I bought a new needlepoint project.

I saw it hanging on the wall at my LYS (which is also a needlepoint shop) and for two weeks I could not get it out of my mind. I kept thinking about that camping cat. So finally I broke down and bought it and I have been looking up the stitches I want to use- I am going to try a few new ones, and I am super excited about the project. The finishing of needlepoint canvasses escapes me so I have no idea what it will become when done (maybe a pillow?) but still, I really just want to work on it.

That's it for now folks. I hope to be posting more often from here on out. I have a root canal on Tuesday to fix the tooth. Wish me luck!

6 Comments

Hope the root canal went well and the pain has been banished .
I , a craven coward about anything dental , sat rigidly through a simple filling yesterday and spent the rest of the afternoon slightly buzzy from adrenaline rush . Can't imagine anything more complicated being a success ... I probably wouldn't unclench my jaws !
Your cross-stich work cover intrigues me . Lovely as it is to relax with a piece of handwork , it can be difficult to pull it out at odd moments without shedding stuff far and wide and getting in a knot .

Three weeks? Ugh, that's not fun at all. On the bright side, it looks like the toothache didn't stop you from getting busy. Recovery is a complete drag sometimes. But in the end, the sun will shine again and everything will be back to being toothache-free.